


The Path Untrod

by aspermoth



Category: Saga of Darren Shan - Darren Shan
Genre: Alternate Reality, Dreams, F/M, Gen, Insanity, Murder, Spoilers, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:43:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspermoth/pseuds/aspermoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As long as he does not change the course to the present, Desmond Tiny can do anything. And sometimes he can do more. Sometimes he can bend the path untrod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Time is linear, in a way: you could think of it as an enormous cosmic tree diagram based on irreversible key decisions, those moments when everything comes down to one choice. And every one of those decisions changes the direction of the line, shutting down all other choices, causing all the alternative futures to fade away so that there is only one line, one path, and all mere mortals must follow its course. None can change its course once it has been set.

Only one can bend it.

Desmond Tiny.

Desmond Tiny can do almost anything; add anything, remove anything, alter anything; as long as it would not alter the course to the present. He can create new choices and new futures that no other being could possibly imagine. And sometimes, he can do more.

Sometimes, he can bend the path untrod.

***

In a floating cosmos somewhere above space and beyond time, a black limitless void dotted with fiery lights, like stars but a thousand times larger than the largest star known to man: that is where the thick white line of time blazes its path across the empty space. Other smaller, weaker lines branch from this master line. Some are long, branching off into long lost possibilities and choices; some are short and broken; but all pulse the dull red of clotted blood. These are the paths untrod.

And this is where Mr Tiny likes to play with time.

He's here now, the small man in Wellington boots, staring down at the silver-white ribbon of time below him, and the red path following parallel to it that was his son Darren's original path through life. It is one of the longest dead possibilities, and one of the most complex, with many other broken branches forking from it into nothingness. This was the life that Darren could have had, should have had. Now, instead, he was a writer. A writer! The son of Destiny, a hack writing nonsense for children, when he could have been the Lord of the Shadows and ruled all the world!

But there is nothing that can be done now. The path has been given to another, a simple puppet dangling from the strings manipulated by his son, a blameless innocent who would go through that suffering, that pain, that same rejection of a glorious future, but who would be spared the suffering of the Lake of Souls. Where's the fun in that?

Mr Tiny follows the red line of his son's possible future along past the point where the foolish child incited Leonard to kill him and up an alternative branch, to the point where Darren could have been – should have been – his wonderful Lord of the Shadows. The dead path is still there, stretching out to the future where the Lord reigns as tyrant, aloof and alone, and dragons fly the earth.

He runs a single gloved finger along that line as though inspecting it for dust, searching for a single point, a single event.

He finds it.

Mr Tiny takes hold of the line with both hands and _lifts_. It comes up reluctantly, pulling against his grasp, but it is no match for him. He takes the line, bends it toward the present, and touches that one specific point of the red, dead future to the same exact point of the present...

Flash. An explosion of light, mingled red and white. The line of the lost future tears itself violently from Mr Tiny's hands and snaps back into place like elastic, but the damage has been done, and Mr Tiny smiles with malicious satisfaction. This is his revenge against those who wrong him, a small piece of cruelty to show them exactly how powerful he is, to punish them for their defiance, and – most importantly – because it's _fun_.

And down in the present, a shiver runs through five sleeping minds, and they begin to live a different life.


	2. Chapter One

Vancha March feels it.

A lot has happened over the years. After Darren had killed Steve Leopard in that tunnel, things changed very rapidly. Darren changed. He was older, harder, harsher than Vancha had expected him to be. He was a Cub Prince no longer: he was a fully fledged Wolf.

And the Vampires had flocked to his side, united beneath his banner. To them, Darren could do no wrong. Not when he made his nephew Darius the new Cub Prince. Not when he ordered that they destroy every last Vampaneze. Not even when he turned on humanity itself.

By the time Vancha realises that Darren had gone too far, it's too late to stop it.

So here they are, in the Hall of Princes. Vancha is sitting to Darren's right; Arrow, to his left. Darren stands before his throne, the Wolf Prince a remarkably imposing figure, even compared with his fellow Princes. And kneeling at his feet, bound, naked and bloody, is the fourth Prince, Mika Ver Leth.

Darren growls, a harsh noise deep in the back of his throat.

"Not since Kurda Smahlt himself have we Princes seen such a disgusting display of treachery," he snarls. "Mika Ver Leth, you are clearly guilty of fraternising with, harbouring and protecting the enemy. What have you to say for yourself before you are taken to the Hall of Death and dropped back first into the spikes until you are dead?"

Mika's eyes glimmer like black granite, hard with anger, and the lines around his mouth are taut.

"Both were Vampirites during the War of the Scars," he says in his clipped, formal tones. "They know our ways. They were prepared to be blooded."

They are going too far. Vancha knows it, and yet he says nothing. He never thought of himself as a coward, so why isn't he _doing_ anything? This is madness!

Darren turns, slams a hand into the arm of his throne hard enough to crack the wood.

"That is no excuse!" he roars. "If they were to be blooded, you should have done so. You did not. Humanity is our enemy, a plague upon this planet, and there shall be no peace for us until they are destroyed!"

"Did Debbie mean so little to you then, Shan?" Mika asks, his voice rising with his anger. "Did you _enjoy_ ordering the Cub Prince to slit her throat?"

"Debbie!" Vancha exclaims before he can stop himself. "Debbie _Hemlock_?"

Mika nods grimly.

"Darius slaughtered her like an animal at _his_ word."

Vancha notices Arrow run a hand over his head and lean back in his chair.

"I liked her," the tattooed man mutters gruffly. "She had guts, for a human."

Vancha feels a cold shiver pass through his stomach, through the scar tissues of that old wound inflicted by his brother during the War of the Scars. It's a feeling that he has been getting more and more often, recently. Usually warning him not to ask the question that is usually already falling off his tongue.

Like now.

"And the other?"

Darren's gaze flicks sharply from Mika to Vancha and then back again. He starts towards Mika, hand raised.

"Shut your mouth, you treacherous-"

"Alice Burgess. It was Alice Burgess."

Darren delivers a vicious backhand blow across Mika's face, but Vancha barely sees and cares less. Alice Burgess. _His_ Alice. He could almost see her, standing at the back of the hall, her throat cut open and gaping like a raw, red mouth, her front stained by a waterfall of blood.

It isn't until Darren gasps with pain and the smell of vampiric blood seeps into the air that Vancha realises that he has moved at all, or even that he has made the decision to do so. But he has.

He's on his feet; one of his shuriken lies on the floor across the Hall of Princes; and a cut on Darren's cheek starts to seep, blood dripping down his face. Darren pushes Mika away and turns to face Vancha very, very slowly, his face contorted with disbelief and rage.

"You dare, March?" he hisses.

"You can bet your ass I do, you son of a bitch," Vancha snaps back. "It's time somebody slapped you back down."

"So be it."

Vancha lets fly another throwing star; Darren twists to the side and it passes his throat by a hair's breadth. Arrow rises from his chair and makes a grab for Darren's arm, but Darren is already gone, dashing towards Vancha and swinging his knife. Vancha leaps back and the knife scythes across in an arc that would have sliced his belly open a few seconds before.

Vancha grins, ready for the fight. Darren is young, and he's angry, but Vancha has experience, age and more experience. It's going to be fun.

They fought back and forth, wound for wound and blood for blood. Darren cuts Vancha's arm; Vancha nicks Darren's chest. Darren opens a shallow gash on Vancha's belly; Vancha opens a shallow cut on Darren's shoulder.

Suddenly, a lull. Darren staggers back, his knife falling from his now limp hand, his other hand clutching his wounded shoulder. He whimpers, stares at the floor in shock.

 _Gotcha now, you bastard!_

Vancha isn't going to kill him. He knows that. This is Darren Shan, after all: his friend, his fellow Prince, his fellow hunter. But that doesn't mean he isn't willing to scare the shit out of the kid.

He dives forward, fingers stiff and straight, aimed at Darren's heart, ready to stop, to spare his friend.

Darren looks up.

He smiles darkly.

 _He's going to kill me._

Vancha tries to pull back from his blow, but Darren seizes his wrist with a bloodied hand and pulls. Those deadly nails skim Darren's side, and a fist smashes into the side of Vancha's head.

Darkness. Flashing lights. Vancha staggers back, dizzied by the blow.

Darren's shoulder slams into his chest, forces him back, pins him against the wall. Darren's fingers press against the skin beneath his ribcage, the nails cutting straight through. The hand rips down and away, then another hand throws him roughly to the ground.

The pain is slow in coming. Vancha can see the hole in his belly, the skin ripped away and thrown aside like garbage; the guts dangling out like wet string, slightly steaming; the blood seeping over the floor like the incoming tide. But for a few seconds, no pain. Nothing at all.

Then _agony_.

Vancha's face contorts in pain, eyes. A scream wells up inside him, but it sticks in his throat. He clenches his teeth against, limbs twitching, then gasps for air, forcing his eyes open.

Darren stands over him, his expression almost neutral but his eyes burning with triumph. Darren Shan. First Cub Prince, then Wolf Prince, now Lord of the fucking Shadows.

Vancha chokes.

"Shadow... Lord."

Darren's expression falters for a second, softens, then hardens into pure hatred. He bends down and stabs a hand hard into Vancha's insides, groping and wrenching, but Vancha can scarcely feel the pain any more, even when grasping fingers puncture his lungs and wrap around his heart.

He can see Alice.

She kneels down next to Vancha, blocking Darren out with her light – she's glowing, why is she glowing? – and she smiles a rare smile, and she's as white and beautiful as a snowstorm, and she's holding out her hand. He takes it without moving and she pulls him to his feet, his last breath whispering out of his lacerated lungs, and even as Darren tears Vancha's heart right out, Alice is drawing him up on towards Paradise...

... and he sits up with a painful jolt, very much awake. Breathing heavily, Vancha presses a hand to his chest, revelling in the steady beat of his heart – it's still there, it's still there – and he shudders. _What the fuck_ was _that?_


	3. Chapter Two

Arrow feels it.

He reaches out for Darren's arm to restrain him – surely his fellow Princes would see reason? – but Darren is already gone and he and Vancha are soon exchanging blows. The fight is over in less than a minute. Darren feigns serious injury, then catches Vancha unaware, knocking him silly before forcing him into a wall. He rips Vancha's stomach open and throws skin and vampire aside like waste.

Arrow can see it, but he can scarcely believe it. This is Darren, _Darren_ , the former Cub Prince, the one who saved them from destruction at the hands of the Vampaneze.

Now friend-murderer. Killer of Vancha March.

On the floor, laid low by Darren's hand, Mika spits the blood out of his mouth, curses and glares.

"Murderer."

Arrow barely notices. He sees Vancha's lips move, the dying Vampire choking out his last words too faint for Arrow to hear but loud enough for Darren. The Wolf Prince's face contorts in hatred and he sinks to his knees, hand digging inside Vancha's body, up into his chest.

The light fades from Vancha's eyes and he grows still. Dead. And Darren rips out his heart.

There is a stunned silence. Darren glances at Arrow and Mika, then retrieves his knife and uses it to point to Vancha's corpse.

"This is the fate of all who challenge the Wolf Prince," he snarls, and he throws Vancha's heart at his feet.

"Darren, what have you _done_?" Arrow asks, stunned. "He was your friend, your fellow Prince. What were you _thinking_?"

Mika laughs, a cold harsh sound.

"Thinking? The Wolf Prince? Don't be ridiculous. He's insane. Gone the way of the Leopard."

" _Shut up_!" Darren screams. "I am nothing like Steve! _Nothing_!"

Arrow rises from his seat.

"You're becoming a monster, Darren."

Darren pauses, contemplates, his brow furrowed.

"Maybe I am, to you. But not... not to them. So what can I do about that?"

A manic grin spreads across Darren's face.

And something flies through the air in an instant. Arrow throws himself to one side to dodge it but just a fraction too late, and the point of Darren's knife catches Arrow's eye. It tears. Blood and vitreous humour spray from the wound, spattering on the ground and hitting Mika in the face, and Arrow's vision is halved in an instant.

The knife is followed by the Wolf Prince himself. Darren throws himself at Arrow, knocking them both to the ground. He pounds his fist into Arrow's face again and again, fingers scrabbling at the edge of Arrow's eye socket, probing for the ruined eye.

Arrow grabs Darren's wrists and forces him up and back, but some kind of madness seems to lend Darren extra strength and he forces Arrow down again, smashing his bald head into the floor. Arrow sees stars explode in his vision and Darren does it again, lifting Arrow's head and smashing it back down into the rock floor until the very rock cracks underneath and blood flows from the torn skin.

Arrow, dazed from the pain and desperate to regain an advantage, lets his body go limp, hoping Darren will take the bait. Bluffing in a fair fight is against his morals, but it is beyond clear that Darren must be stopped by any means necessary.

Darren smashes Arrow's head into the floor one last time then releases it, panting from the exertion. Then he leans down.

"I know you're faking," he whispers, "but you won't be soon."

Arrow twists and tries to roll away, but Darren's knees dig into his upper arms and pin them down. Darren points a stiffened index finger at Arrow's uninjured eye.

"Die."

And he stabs down. The finger plunges into and through Arrow's eye, blinding him completely, piercing the contents of his skull and knocking his soul straight into Paradise...

... and knocking him straight into wakefulness. His eyes snap open: the fact that he has vision, he can still see, calms his mind instantly. There's no knife, no probing finger, no shattered eyes. He can see. He's safe.


	4. Chapter Three

Mika Ver Leth feels it.

The blood and fluids from Arrow's eyeball are splattered over his face. He can taste them in his mouth, mixed with his own blood from the blow Darren dealt him. He can even taste the difference.

Arrow is dead. Darren killed him with a single finger driven straight through the eye and into the brain and Mika was powerless to stop him. And now, the mad Wolf Prince is wiping his bloody hands on his shirt in satisfaction.

Mika has never hated anybody so much in all his many, many days.

"So what is your plan?" he asks stiffly. "Nobody is going to believe that they just dropped dead. Not looking like that."

"I'll think something up," Darren replies casually. "Might blame you, actually."

He picks up knife and starts wiping that clean flippantly, infuriatingly.

"Here's how I see it," he says. "Driven mad by the lies and torture of the humans, you broke free and tore Vancha's stomach out. I'll dip your hand in his blood once you're dead, that'll make it convincing."

He stops cleaning the knife and starts juggling it instead, throwing it carelessly from hand to hand yet never accidentally cutting himself.

"Then you stole my knife and killed Arrow. Terrible, it was. Finger through the eyes. I'll have to stick your fingers in _there_ as well, of course."

He shrugged.

"And well, you were insane and dangerous, so I had to take action. There was a struggle and tragically, you were killed. End of story."

Mika bites his lip. There is Darren's blood on Vancha's hands – surely that would be enough to destroy Darren's story.

"Oh, and I almost forgot," Darren added. "You caused me these injuries. With this knife, in fact. Oh dear, better make it bloody again."

And so Darren draws the blade of his knife carefully through his shoulder wound, smearing it with his blood, teeth gritted against the pain. Then he throws it aside. He pulls another concealed knife from his clothes.

"And this knife, this is the knife that kills you. _Lingeringly_."

Mika strains silently against the ropes binding his wrists, but they are a relic from the war with the Vampaneze, designed to withstand a Vampire or Vampaneze's strength: they don't break. How will Darren explain that? Oh he'll find a way. The Wolf Prince is as silver-tongued as he is murderously insane.

Darren runs his tongue along the blade and grins, a terrifying, dangerous, lunatic grin that chills even Mika's heart.

"I'm going to enjoy this, you know."

A part of Mika wants for him to close his eyes, to look away, but that's the coward's way out: he stares defiantly at the figure of the Wolf Prince bearing down on him, the dark figure with burning eyes and a glinting knife.

He will not scream.

***

Mika's throat is raw and parched from screaming. How could he not scream? How could he think that he would not?

The pain is beyond comprehension. Almost every inch of his skin has been cut, slit, gashed. Wounds that are only skin deep and wounds that gape down to the bone and deep penetrating stab wounds into the gut that pour blood and stomach acid in equal amounts. And blood is everywhere, filling his eyes and his nose and his mouth to the point of nausea.

He barely knows that he is lying on the ground until Darren's hand clasps around his jaw and lifts him up, squeezing so tightly that the bones in Mika's jaw creak, threatening to crack, pushing his head back to reveal his throat.

"Die like your filthy humans," Darren hisses.

And his knife flashes across Mika's throat, slicing to the bone, severing all. Darren drops him and Mika chokes, blood filling his lungs, and he's choking and he's _drowning_ and...

... and reality drowns the dream. Mika awakes instantly and opens his eyes. He takes barely a second to ascertain that he is whole and unhurt, then stands up slowly and calmly before sweeping from his chamber like a bat.


	5. Chapter Four

Darius Shan feels it.

He is passing by the Hall of Princes when he hears Uncle Darren's scream and comes running. Stumbling, almost falling over his own feet, he throws himself through the door, followed by two Generals – his personal guard. Uncle Darren is kneeling in the middle of the Hall, his face a mask of tears and blood.

"Uncle Darren," he gasps. Then he shouts, "Uncle Darren!"

And Darius rushes across the room, almost slips on the bloody floor, slows down, and stops before his uncle. He pauses for a moment, then reaches out a hand and rests it on Darren's shoulder. He's the Cub Prince: he's no sentimental fool. Not even the fact that he is now closer to his uncle than even to his mother could make him that.

"What happened, uncle? Are you alright?"

Then he sees the bodies. Vancha March, torn open, guts hanging out and his heart two feet away from him. Arrow, his face crusted with blood, both of his eyes torn and ruined. And Mika Ver Leth, who no longer resembled anything akin to a vampire.

Darius releases Uncle Darren's shoulder, hand bloodied from the wound he had not seen, and he stares in horror at the carnage surrounding them. The stench of blood is frightful, sickening. The Generals – mature, hardened vampires, accustomed to killing and death – both pale. One of them, the younger, gags and runs from the room; Darius can hear him vomiting outside.

Part of him wants to flee too, to vomit until the memory of that place is purged, but he is stronger than that. He is the Cub Prince.

"What _happened_?" he whispers.

Darren wipes a hand across his eyes, smearing the blood across his face.

"It was... it was Mika," he chokes. "I couldn't stop him, I couldn't stop... He kill... Charna's guts, he _gutted_ Vancha."

He voice cracks. Darius bites his lip, gaze settling on Vancha's corpse. The lilac-grey coils of intestine trailing limply on the ground are steaming slightly, still warm, and he almost fancies that he can see that abandoned, desecrated heart beating. A warm trickle runs down Darius's chin and he realises that his lip is bleeding.

Darren gasps for air, steadies himself.

"He... he took my knife, threw it at Arrow, took out one of his eyes, and then... he... his bare _hands_ , right through Arrow's eye, I couldn't _stop_ him."

Darius glances over at Arrow's corpse then away from the red-filled eye sockets and the empty expression.

"I tried so hard..." Darren sobs. "Just look what the humans _did_ to him, what he did to _himself_."

Darius can't help himself. The Cub Prince he may be, but not even the Cub Prince is heartless. He throws his arms around his uncle and hugs him close, refusing to look at the near-skinless, bloody lump of meat that used to be Mika Ver Leth.

"It's alright, Uncle Darren," he says, voice wobbling slightly, beyond his control. "You stopped him. He won't hurt anybody else. It's just you and me, now, Uncle Darren. Just you and me."

Darren lets out another sob, hugs him tight, then lets him go. Darius can see how hard his uncle's features have become, hard and cold. Suppressing his pain. Burying it deep inside himself. Putting on a brave face for the others.

The General with the stronger stomach barks an order to his partner, whom Darius can hear running for help. Although what help they could give now is anybody's guess.

Darren laughs softly.

"Just you and me, Darius. Just you and me."

His laughter gets louder and louder, an insane cackle that sounds more like Steve Leonard than Darren Shan. And Darius looks down, down at the blood on his left hand, his uncle's blood, and he starts to laugh too, until his throat hurts...

... and he wakes up and starts to cry. Annie, his mother, climbs out of her bed and scoops him up out of his crib, holding him close. She smells of milk and warm blankets and comfort; he is soon soothed, and the nightmare is soon forgotten in the lost labyrinths of babyhood.


	6. Chapter Five

Darren Shan feels it.

It all started when he killed Steve Leonard. Before then, he knew what he wanted, who he was, what was real.

And then everything changed when he found out the truth: nothing he had ever done mattered. He wasn't a person. He was a puppet dancing on the strings, a slave to destiny, a plaything in the hands of Mr Tiny.

He rejected Mr Tiny at first. He wanted nothing to do with the future that lay before him and the Lord he would become. But when he emerged from the tunnel alone to find his friends, he felt nothing. No grief at the deaths. No joy at their victory. No relief for the fact that Vancha had survived. Nothing.

He was hollow inside. An empty shell. A puppet.

Dancing for Mr Tiny.

And he was going to put on one hell of a show.

Their first target was the Vampets. Divided and scattered, the Vampaneze did nothing to help their once-comrades, shunning them for their dishonesty and lack of honour. And the Vampires killed them all.

But that wasn't enough for Darren. It never could be. The Vampaneze came next. _We aren't safe_ , he said. _The Vampaneze will come back_ , he said. _We cannot rest easy until we have wiped them out_ , he said.

Harkat Mulds disagreed, but then that treacherous little bastard would. A knife in the back and a few dead Vampaneze surrounding his corpse, however, made him the perfect excuse to re-ignite the war against the Vampaneze. To exterminate them.

And they did. Murdered in cold blood. Every last one.

And Darren felt nothing.

He was the darling of the vampires, the epic warrior, the Wolf Prince. Nobody dared argue with him. He blooded Darius as the new Cub Prince and no-one said a word. His sense of his own importance grew. He was Darren Shan, the Wolf Prince, the leader of the Vampires.

The idea of the Lord of the Shadows began to grow appealing.

And that was when Mr Tiny came to him. His father. His puppet master.

 _Take on humanity_ , he said. _Show them who their true master is_ , he said. _Make me proud, son_ , he said.

Darren turned the idea down at first, but it soon became too sweet to resist. The idea of that much power, that much control, was intoxicating. The possibility of fulfilment, of knowing that something he did could affect so many people, was all he wanted. Thus they began the war against humanity, turning those who were willing to change, killing those who were not.

That was how Mika Ver Leth came to turn against him, to plot against him with Debbie and Alice.

That was how they came to that day in the Hall of Princes, when all but he and Darius were killed.

Two days ago, now.

His hands are stained with the blood of countless men, women, children, Vampaneze and Vampires, yet he couldn't care less. He tore out his own parents' throats. He ordered his nephew to murder the love of his life. He slaughtered his friends in cold blood.

And he still feels numb. Empty. Hollow.

 _Dance, puppet, dance for Destiny_...

What does he care for friend, family, foe? He is the son of Des Tiny. He is an abomination. He is a monster.

He is the Lord of the Shadows.

And the Lord must address his court.

Beyond the door, in the Hall of Princes, stands every single Vampire in the world. His subjects, ready and waiting for his commands, his explanation as to what happened to their Princes. An explanation he is ready to give.

He glances to the left to see his father, Mr Tiny, Destiny personified, is standing there, toying with that heart-shaped watch of his. For a moment, Darren half-fancies that it's his heart, that Mr Tiny tore it out when he was born and now plays with it like he plays with Darren's future.

"Father," he says stiffly.

"Son."

"What business do you have here?"

"I wanted to see the moment when you declare war upon humanity, my boy. When you become the Lord of the Shadows."

Darren smiles, an eerie, cold smile.

"Then follow me, father."

And together, father and son, they enter the Hall of Princes, the clamour of the voices of countless Vampires sweeping over them like a wave...

... and sweeping Darren's mind clear out of sleep. He sits up, rubs his eyes clear of sleep and grimaces.

"That's it," he mutters to himself. "No more vampire books for now."

Then he lies down once again, and soon drifts into fresh dreams, of demons and werewolves and Lord Loss.


	7. Epilogue

In a fiery cosmos somewhere beyond time and above space, a small man in Wellington boots grins maliciously. Below him, the great white line of time blazes ever onwards, ripe for the meddling, ready to be manipulated and gently steered into the course of Armageddon.

And branching from it, pulsing thickly, red as clotted blood, are the paths untrod. And they will always be there, pulsating with possibility, dead and empty of purpose.

The path untrod will lurk in your thoughts and follow you in your dreams.

The path untrod will haunt you 'til you die.


End file.
